FILE - In this Feb. 9, 1964 file photo, The Beatles, from left, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Ringo Starr on drums, and John Lennon perform on the CBS "Ed Sullivan Show" in New York. The Beatles made their first appearance on "The Ed Sullivan Show," America's must-see weekly variety show, on Sunday, Feb. 9, 1964. And officially kicked off Beatlemania. (AP Photo, File)

FILE - Britain's Beatles make a windswept arrival in New York in this Feb. 7, 1964, file photo, as they step down from the plane that brought them from London, at Kennedy airport. From left to right, Ringo Starr, John Lennon, Paul McCartney and George Harrison. (AP Photo, File)

FILE - In this Feb. 9, 1964 file photo, Paul McCartney, right, shows his guitar to host Ed Sullivan before the Beatles' live television appearance on "The Ed Sullivan Show" in New York. The Beatles made their first appearance on "The Ed Sullivan Show," America's must-see weekly variety show, on Sunday, Feb. 9, 1964. And officially kicked off Beatlemania. (AP Photo, File)

FILE - In this Feb. 9, 1964 file photo, Ed Sullivan, center, stands with The Beatles, from left, Ringo Starr, George Harrison, John Lennon, and Paul McCartney, during a rehearsal for the British group's first American appearance, on the "Ed Sullivan Show," in New York. The Beatles made their first appearance on "The Ed Sullivan Show," America's must-see weekly variety show, on Sunday, Feb. 9, 1964. And officially kicked off Beatlemania. (AP Photo, File)

FILE - In this Feb. 9, 1964 file photo, The Beatles , from left, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr on drums, George Harrison and John Lennon, perform on the CBS "Ed Sullivan Show" in New York. The Beatles made their first appearance on "The Ed Sullivan Show," America's must-see weekly variety show, on Sunday, Feb. 9, 1964. And officially kicked off Beatlemania. (AP Photo/Dan Grossi/ File)

Richard Burkhart/Savannah Morning News A Chet Atkins Country Gentleman guitar similar to the one George Harrison played on the Ed Sullivan Show on Feb. 9 1964 and a Chet Atkins Tennessean similar to the one Harrison played at Shea Stadium in 1965 on display in the Gretsch headquarters in Pooler.

Richard Burkhart/Savannah Morning News Fred Gretsch, president The Gretsch Company, holds a George Harrison Custom Shop Tribute Duo Jet, which is a reproduction of what Harrison called his "first good guitar", at the Gretsch headquarters in Pooler.

Richard Burkhart/Savannah Morning News A variety of photos of Beatle George Harrison playing various Gretsch guitars.

On Feb. 9, 1964, the British invaded America.

Their names were John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. And when The Beatles appeared on CBS’ “The Ed Sullivan Show,” millions went crazy.

Parents watched, stunned, as their once-demure daughters began screaming with something approaching lust.

Their formerly baseball-obsessed, short-haired sons suddenly developed a passion for the guitar, drums, having their own bands — and letting their hair grow. A quartet of young, mop-haired musicians were setting culture on its head.

“I thought this was the coolest thing in the world,” says Tom Kohler, executive director of Chatham-Savannah Citizen Advocacy. “We all did.”

Kohler already owned a Beatles record.

“I was given the 45 ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand’ on my birthday when I was 12 years old,” he says. “Maybe people did realize that something was happening here they didn’t completely understand. Almost everybody in their 60s has a memory of that night.”

Older folks may not have known what hit them, but the backlash from the performance became apparent immediately.

“There are musicians in town who knew at that moment, this was what they were going to do with the rest of their lives,” Kohler says.

On the Friday before the band’s Sullivan appearance, every one of Kohler’s male classmates wore his hair neatly parted and combed back.

“On Monday, every boy in the sixth-grade class wore their hair pushed forward on their heads like The Beatles,” he says. “We had group projects that we were doing. Suddenly, every group morphed into The Beatles.”

In 1963, the USO was based at what today is the National Guard Armory on Eisenhower Drive.

“Our group went to the USO on a Friday night to be The Beatles,” Kohler says. “We lip-synced to ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand.’ There we were, four 12-year-olds in front of these 19- and 20-year-olds, acting like The Beatles.”

A co-founder of Savannah Rocks!, a group dedicated to collecting images, stories and memorabilia from Savannah’s own music scene, Kohler knows many locals who are Beatles fans. Recently, Savannah Rocks! organized an exhibition of Beatles memorabilia at The Sentient Bean and held a concert Friday night to commemorate the Big 5-0.

“It was a stunning success,” Kohler says. “We’ve got hundreds and hundreds of photos on our Facebook page and thousands of posts.

“I think music does move people’s souls and is a great unifier,” he says. “I certainly knew the music of the 60s was still important to people in their 60s.

“What I didn’t know was that younger people would contribute so spectacularly,” Kohler says. “It’s always fun to see someone bring in a news clipping from 1967 that has a band playing on River Street with go-go dancers.”

The Gretsch connection

The Beatles not only changed lives, they changed the future of at least one company, Gretsch Musical Instruments.

Now based in Pooler, the 131-year-old company saw business surge after George Harrison appeared on stage playing a Gretsch Chet Atkins Country Gentleman guitar.

Fred W. Gretsch, president of Gretsch Musical Instruments, was a teenager in Forest Hills, N.Y., at the time.

“It’s kind of fun to think about it,” he says. “Under a certain age, people don’t know what you’re talking about.

“I watched with my three sisters and a couple of friends in our TV room. We had a small couch and a chair or two.

“So few people had color TVs,” he says. “Ours was probably a black and white 19-inch RCA Victor. We had one TV at our house, and there were only three stations.”

For weeks, local deejays had been promoting the band’s appearance on the Sullivan show by saturating the airwaves with Beatles music. The single, “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” had just reached No. 1 on the charts.

“All attention was focused on New York City as The Beatles came to town,” Gretsch says. “It was incredible.

“We knew George Harrison used a Gretsch Chet Atkins Country Gentleman. We tried to contact him, but it was just impossible. We were sure that they would be a big hit.”

The Sullivan show inspired a new generation of musicians to begin forming bands.

“After The Beatles, business skyrocketed,” Gretsch says.

The demand was so huge it sometimes took six months for an order to be filled.

“It turned up the heat for some time,” Gretsch says.

Harrison also used a Gretsch Tennessean guitar and it, too, became a bestseller. A long-time admirer of Gretsch guitars, he bought his first, a used black Gretsch Duo Jet in 1960, years later saying, “God knows how I managed to get 75 quid together.”

In 1987, a photo of the ’57 Duo Jet graced an inner sleeve of Harrison’s album, “Cloud Nine.” Gretsch’s wife, Dinah, the company’s executive vice president and CFO, wrote to Harrison to thank him.

“He called her on the phone and told her how much he loved Gretsch guitars and about The Traveling Wilburys project he was working on with Bob Dylan, Roy Orbison, Tom Petty and Jeff Lynne,” Gretsch says.

Harrison even invited the couple to a recording session.

“That gave us the chance to meet him several times,” Gretsch says. “He was a real gentleman, soft spoken. It was quite an honor for Gretsch guitars.

“It was a joy to hear someone of his level talk about Gretsch guitars,” Gretsch says. “We got to meet Tom Petty and Jeff Lynne.”

Harrison even discussed an idea he had for a special Traveling Wilburys guitar. In 1988, the company introduced the special-edition Traveling Wilburys TW-500 guitar.

The British Invasion

For many people in the U.S., “The Ed Sullivan Show” appearance was the first time they’d ever heard of The Beatles.

But by the time they arrived in New York, they already had scored several No. 1 singles in Britain and the word “Beatlemania” was widely in use there.

Sullivan was stuck at the Heathrow Airport in London the same day The Beatles returned from Sweden. Thousands of fans were waiting to greet them, and he was so impressed he decided they should appear on his show.

In December 1963, Capitol Records, the band’s U.S. label, started a marketing blitz in preparation for the event. By the time, the band actually appeared on Sullivan’s show, “I Want to Hold Your Hand” was the No. 1 hit.

The Beatles opened the show with “All My Loving,” “Till There Was You” and “She Loves You.” They closed it with “I Saw Her Standing There” and “I Want to Hold Your Hand.”

The show shattered records that night, attracting 73 million viewers, with 45.3 percent of American households tuned in to watch The Beatles.

Kenny Warman of Savannah was one of those viewers.

“I was about 10 or 12 at the time,” he says. “I was fascinated.

“A lot of people say The Beatles changed the world. They certainly changed my world.”

The sixth of 11 children, Warman came from a poor family.

“I was on the east side of Savannah,” he says. “We didn’t consider it the poor side of town, but it was the poor side of town.”

It was Warman’s first year of junior high school.

“I had P.E. and after we had to go take a shower,” he says. “It was the first time I’d ever showered.

“For some reason, like a nervous habit, I would sing. A couple of guys heard me singing and said, ‘We know a guy who is starting a rock ‘n’ roll band, and we think you need to try out as a singer.’

“They kept bugging me about it,” Warman says. “So I started singing in rock ‘n’ roll bands when I was 14 and 15 years old, and it was all due to the influence of The Beatles.”

The experience was transforming.

“I met people in a better class than me, and it completely changed my whole life,” Warman says.

“I was headed for a life of juvenile delinquency, and this pulled me right out of that. I made good grades in school.

“I continued singing until I got drafted in 1970,” Warman says. “Then I had to grow up and be an adult.”

Today, Warman is a master technician for Savannah Tire.

“I’ve spent my adult years raising my children and sending them to college,” he says. “But I recently regained my rock ‘n’ roll career. We have a little guitar jam thing we do every Wednesday night.

“Some of the old guys and younger guys get together and play music. All of that’s a direct result of what The Beatles did.”

To this day, Warman remembers sitting in the living room with his family on that long-ago night.

“It was like nothing we’d ever seen before,” he says.

“Everyone was freaking out about their hair,” Warman says. “One of the side effects of The Beatles was I got kicked out of junior high for having hair over my ears. That wasn’t allowed in junior high back then.”

The female perspective

City alderwoman Mary Osborne is a Beatles fan who has a vivid memory of seeing them on television for the first time.

“Quite frankly, I’d never seen anyone act like that,” she says. “It was almost like seeing Elvis Presley for the first time. I saw both those acts for the first time on Ed Sullivan’s show.”

At the time, Osborne was living in New York City.

“Everyone was raving all over the city, ‘The Beatles! The Beatles! The Beatles!,” she says. “I’m very excited they’re having an anniversary.”

Recently, Savannah Rocks! made a Beatles presentation to the Savannah City Council.

“They were in costumes,” Osborne says. “It was a wonderful presentation they made to city council.

“I’m a big fan. I’ve always enjoyed their music.”

Osborne remembers the screaming that preceded The Beatles’ performance. “They were hysterical,” she says. “It was something else.

“It was unusual, just like Elvis Presley. Who ever expected him to jump out with blue suede shoes and rock out?”

Lynne Davis and her husband, Charles, were a young couple living in Germany in 1964.

“We had flown to London for a visit,” she says. “We were walking through Hyde Park and a whole gaggle of kids with the Beatles look went storming by, all singing this wild music.

“We were right by a bobby. He turned to us with a look of utter contempt and said, ‘Only their mothers could love them.’

“My husband was an Army officer, and we were so clean-cut in the way we were dressed,” Davis says. “We barely knew who The Beatles were.”

It wasn’t until they returned stateside that the Davises heard Beatles music.

“There were some of their songs that we dearly loved,” she says. “I used to have all their albums, but I gave them to our daughter and son, but we do have some CDs. They had great songs, and we really enjoyed them.”

Not everyone was so enthusiastic.

Comer Immel of Savannah didn’t much care for The Beatles at all.

“I didn’t go delirious about them,” she says. “My initial reaction was that I didn’t like them nearly as much as Elvis. I thought Elvis’ kind of rock ‘n’ roll was a little better.

“I remember ‘Strawberry Fields’ and them being high on pot and thinking ‘That is so weird,’” Immel says. “There were songs I liked, but I was a diehard Elvis fan.”

Some young women were on the fence about The Beatles.

“In the beginning, I wasn’t quite sure what to think,” says Lydia Ramsey, the president and founder of Manners That Sell. “Elvis had prepared me for big changes in music, so it wasn’t quite the shock it might have been for others.”

But Ramsey did enjoy the broadcast.

“I thought they were fun, and it was interesting,” she says. “They were well-received, but I had no idea they would become legends who have had such a lasting effect.

“All these years later and people are clamoring to hear those songs. I listen to the radio when I’m driving around and can’t count how many times I hear a Beatles song.

“They had a tune and they had lyrics that said something,” she says. “They weren’t just repeating the same phrase over and over again.

“It came with a strong and meaningful and often touching message,” Ramsey says. “Sometimes, when you’re looking for a quote, a Beatles song come to mind.”

The late Nell Varnedoe, who died Jan. 30 at age 49, grew up loving The Beatles.

“Nell was a wonderful person and a big Beatles fan,” her father, Gordon Varnedoe, says. “A huge picture of The Beatles hung on the wall at the foot of her bed. When she died, I cut it down and put it into an envelope that went with her ashes.”

Although his daughter was a Beatles’ fan, Varnedoe preferred Elvis Presley.

“When The Beatles came to America, the first place they visited was Elvis’ house,” he says. “John Lennon made the comment, ‘Before Elvis Presley there was nothing.’”

Despite his own indifference, Varnedoe did encourage his daughter’s love of The Beatles.

“I was ski bumming in Aspen, Colo., when I was a bachelor,” he says. “I came home to Savannah and married my bride and we moved to California.

“We had Nell and she was in her crib. Some friends from Aspen came for a visit and we had Beatles music playing the whole time, so it was some of the first music she ever heard.”

In announcing Nell’s death to family and friends, Varnedoe wrote: “Johnny Mercer wrote a song ‘And the Angels Sing’ and now the angels are singing Beatles songs for our Sweet Nell.”

“More than anything else, I remember the screaming girls,” says Mazo, who is the rental project manager for Stage Front Presentation Systems. “They just screamed.”

At the time, Mazo was himself a musician and already a Beatles fan.

“I was young at the time, but I was still a musician,” he says. “I was not blown away by the music but by the fact that The Beatles were in the United States and this was their music.”

At that time, Mazo listened to music on AM radio.

“I did own some 45s, and as usual, my mom and dad had to tell me to turn it down,” he says.

“My mother was a musician, so she understood it as music. It wasn’t as bad to my parents as Elvis. Where Elvis was a noise to adults, The Beatles actually played good music.”

The Beatles’ fame has endured.

“They had so many good, good songs,” Mazo says.

“They had 49 songs in the Top 40 and 27 of them were No. 1 hits. They just kept on writing good stuff.

“The only way they could get out of the No. 1 spot was to go out on a limb and do stuff that wasn’t commercially wonderful but was good music,” he says. “‘Meet The Beatles’ was almost like their interpretation of American rockabilly.”

In 1965, The Beatles presented a record-breaking concert at Shea Stadium in New York City.

“From today’s point of view, it’s a miracle anyone could hear them at all,” Mazo says. “We put hundreds and hundreds of boxes up for a concert like that today, but they just had a few.”

Mazo’s senior class picture shows a young man with a Beatles-style haircut.

“I remember my father telling me, ‘You’ll never see a professional football player with hair like that,’” he says.

“In 1964, I was 13. I was right in the trenches with the rest of them.

“Back then it was all about revolution,” Mazo says. “We all had our different ways to revolt.”

As good as a Gretsch

The Beatles’ George Harrison was not the only fan of Gretsch guitars, now based in Pooler. Throughout its history, stars such as Chet Atkins, Burl Ives, Arthur Godfrey, Bono, Charlie Watts, Jack White and many more have used their guitars, and The Monkees used a Gretsch drum set.

“My grandfather started the business in 1883,” Gretsch says. “I started working part-time in the early 50s for 25 cents an hour.

“By 1958, it was 75 cents an hour. I became full-time in 1965.

“We have six children and 16 grandchildren,” he says. “We’re planning for them to continue the tradition into the future.”

Georgia Southern display features Beatles

“These Youngsters from Liverpool: The Beatles, Ed Sullivan and Gretsch Guitars” can be seen through Feb. 14 at Georgia Southern Museum in Statesboro.

The display features Beatles memorabilia and Gretsch guitars, including ones similar to what Beatles member George Harrison owned.

MARINE CORPS BASE CAMP BUTLER, Okinawa, Japan — Marine Corps Captain James E. Frederick, who ejected from a Marine F/A-18 on Dec. 7, was pronounced dead after his body was found during search and rescue operations.